


Hold Me Now

by BleuStrawberriez



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Could be read as JayBabs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24478108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleuStrawberriez/pseuds/BleuStrawberriez
Summary: Batgirl and Robin had never been anything more than a stepping stone in the Joker's obsessive need to hurt Batman.But he'd broken and changed them irreparably.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Jason Todd
Kudos: 21





	Hold Me Now

"My soul was gone." Jason's voice was hoarse. His words ending with a low thrumming agony. It was thick and heavy on his tongue. Tasted like blood and bile. Like terror and despair. Like rusted steel and busted teeth.

Broken dreams and shattered hearts.

The sound of high pitched laughter and wild blood-shot eyes staring down at him. A pointed bleach-pale nose and knife-sharp chin. Thin lips drawn into a bloody frothing smile wide enough to split a man's face into two.

These were half-remembered things pieced together over the years as the Pit's influence on his psyche waxed and waned. As trauma and abuse set and sank beneath a protective layer. Roy's friendship, Kory's compassion and empathy, Artemis's willingness to criticize when needed, and Bizarro's unwavering love and affection had all worked to help him recover.

He hadn't wanted it.

His heart hurting. His body aching. His soul split numbly into an uneven pair. Jason hadn't wanted their love.

But he'd gotten it nonetheless.

Jason remembered long nights with his head buried in his hands. Roy's hand large and heavy on his back. His voice a comforting rumble in a dimly lit room. Jason's shoulders shuddering as he struggled with night terrors that could frighten a grown man into a gibbering wreck. Roy's mouth curved into a small smile. His gaze warm as he rubbed circles into tense muscles.

Roy never judged.

Never pitied.

Kory woke him on the worst nights. Her green eyes so unlike the Pit's sickly light. Concern in the curve of her mouth. Kory with her compassion and understanding. Her over-buttered and salted popcorn, strange assortment of condiments, and children's movies. Blankets spread over their laps. Jason tucked into her side as she purred her contentment. Eyes bright and shimmering with their eerie alien light.

Those dark nights lulled into a comforting sort of haze via impromptu sleep-overs and cuddle sessions.

The sort of thing that Jason had never really had before. He'd been too young for Dick to really bond with. He'd entered the other's life at a difficult time. Bruce's easy affection for him had driven Dick away before Jason ever really had the chance to get to know him. Kory had become used to these sorts of events with the Titans and had brought them into Jason's life.

Artemis was a silent presence at his side. She never stared. Her broad shoulders straight. Arms full of weapons that needed cleaning, sharpening, or polishing. She was a solid comforting presence at the side of his bed. Her tall strong frame sitting between him and the nearest entrance.

Some nights were spent with Bizarro. Biz's wide crooked grin and shining eyes soothed something ragged and wild inside of him. His childlike innocence. The sweet affection that Biz lavished on him. Bizarro had the mentality of a young child but he was wise beyond his years. He understood Jason better than anyone else.

Jason didn't know what he'd done to deserve them.

He was broken. Inside and outside.

Covered in scars both physical and spiritual. Plain as day.

And yet...

Barbara's eyes were wide now. Her expression gentle. Understanding settling along the edges and curves of her face. He imagined that Dick's would be stricken. Those large blue eyes would gleam with grief and regret in the artificial lights of the Clocktower's internal space. Bruce's would be inscrutable. His expression cold and distant. Eyes a familiar glint of ice in the darkness. Grief and regret all tangled up with self-loathing and inflexible anger.

Jason....Jason felt exhausted at the thought.

He couldn't imagine the others reactions to his words. He'd never had the best relationship with hi-Bruce's family.

Friends, in Jason's limited experience, were different from family. They required different things. Didn't demand as much. There was more give with friends than there seemed to be with family.

He'd never have a good relationship with the Replacement. Any chance of that had been shot when he'd taken his weapons up against the boy. Timothy Drake-Wayne would never look at Jason with anything resembling closeness or trust...and Jason couldn't blame him. Wasn't sure he'd want it in any case. He'd had his reasons for attacking the boy. Jason could admit now that they weren't _good_ reasons, but he'd felt justified in them at the time. He couldn't say if he'd do anything different if given the chance.

Cassandra Cain-Wayne wasn't someone that Jason was ever sure he'd know. He'd burned too many bridges and hurt too many of the people the girl loved to really endear himself to her. He was, frankly speaking, lucky that she'd allow Barbara to be alone with him. Babs was the closest thing to a mother that she had and Jason understood the feeling of wanting to keep your mom close. 

To keep her safe.

They weren't even siblings.

For all that Bruce had adopted them. For all that they were Waynes, printed on cheap mass-produced paper and written in beautiful cursive on legal documents, Jason had never known them. Not the way he'd barely known Dick. Who hadn't even been a Wayne proper at the time. Jason Todd had died too soon to know them. He'd come back too angry to try and get to know the children that had replaced him as Bruce's partner and child. Some part of him wasn't sure they'd ever have joined the family if he hadn't died.

_Was his death the catalyst that led to the unwelcome growth of Bruce's family?_

_Had he been meant to die?_

_Would they be happier if he'd stayed dead?_

Jason couldn't answer those questions. He didn't know what the right answers were. He knew what Dick would say. Knew that Barbara would hold her peace with his questions. Jason knew what he _wanted_ Bruce to say. 

He'd died and any ties to Bruce and his family had gone into the grave with him. They'd been scattered across the dirty dusty floor of an Ethiopian warehouse with the same glittering golden dust that had been left from his soul's torment.

"Nicolás settled there. In Ethiopia. We were so happy to have found her. Our mom." Jason doesn't look at Babs now. His voice is a low husky thing nowadays. Not quite smoky. He lingers on the sound. The slight rasp around his vowels. The rich timbre that it had settled into after his return. It's easier to focus on the sound of his own voice. Better that than the remembered horror and nausea that swells up within him at the memories he'd dredged up for this conversation.

He sounds a little like his mom. And that's a comforting thought.

"Jason..." Barbara's voice is soft. Filled with empathetic pain and grief. Jason knows that she'd understand. He doesn't have to glance over at her to see that Babs' fingers are curling into the thick scruff of fur along Alessa's neck. An instinctive motion. A protective and grounding one.

"I don't remember much and Nicolás doesn't talk about it. But he was beautiful. Gleaming blue feathers along his back. Brown-grey flight feathers. His breast and belly were white." Jason inhaled, swallowed the lump that clung to his throat as he took in the sight above him. His dæmon was sat on top of Barbara's computer. A silent observant shadow. The stark shadows cast by the artificial lights highlighting his striking plumage. The reddish-brown feathers. His black-tipped double crest seemed to drink in the darkness surrounding his chosen perch.

Nicolás's breast was composed of black-brown and blue-tinged grey feathers. His throat brown and full while his belly was overlaid with splotches and bars of the same colored feathers that covered his chest. Hints of cream and reddish-toned feathers interspersed within.

His dæmon's wings were drawn tight to his sides. But Jason knew, without a doubt, that they'd be that same combination of black-brown with white tipped primaries. The undersides more chestnut in color with splotches of black within. His tail, hidden by the darkness, would be brownish-grey and striped. His thighs and legs thickly barred in blacks and whites.

Nicolás's current form was large and intimidating. A strong and powerful frame. Long dangerous talons. Jason was well aware of the fear those golden eyes instilled during patrols.

It was a surprisingly reassuring sight despite the grief that clung to his throat.

"Jason. You don't have to talk about...." Barbara spoke carefully. Her voice even and calm. Jason shuddered as calloused fingers gently reached out for him. They cradled his fingers and rubbed gentle circles into his palm. Her fingers were long, slender, and slightly crooked. Her knuckles lightly scarred. The calluses thick and rough. Signs of a long adolescence dedicated to crime-fighting.

"I know. But I want to." He couldn't quite recognize the sound of his own voice now. That wretched, wrecked thing. He could feel Nicolás's gaze, heavy and uncompromising, on him. The unexpected press of Alessa's body against his leg. The dæmon was careful to keep the thick fabric of his pants between them as she rested her head against his thigh.

"Joker took him. Squeezed until his fragile little bones fractured underneath the pressure. Plucked at those pretty feathers. _Delighted_ when they flaked into dust between his fingers the moment they separated from Nick's body. He pushed my dæmon's feathers away from his belly and touched him. Skin to skin. God, Babs. It hurt _so much_ more than I expected _._ Left me feeling dirty. Dirtier than I'd ever felt. Even compared to the things I had to do as a kid. I'd never felt anything worse. I still haven't."

Barbara's gaze never wavered. Her grip tightened slightly as she kept his hands between them. Not quite touching Alessa's head with the back of her hands. Jason understood. He couldn't imagine the idea of someone else touching Nick again. Knew from old conversations with Dick that Babs was the same.

Touching someone else's dæmon was a precious and personal thing. They were literally handling your soul. Nine times out of ten you'd receive the worst pain in your life. To have someone touch them with deliberate hostility and the intent to cause harm? Was unfathomable to most people. The fact that the Joker had done it twice, and happily at that, to people he barely saw as rivals was something that Jason still couldn't quite deal with.

It ruined a person. Made them less likely to trust. Less likely to welcome another's touch again.

Batgirl and Robin had never been anything more than a stepping stone in the Joker's obsessive need to hurt Batman.

But he'd broken and changed them irreparably.

The Joker had taken them and inconsiderately driven his mark through them like stakes through strong sturdy ice. Creating thin cracks and jagged breaks in the smooth surface. Drawing dark freezing water from the depths to the surface to lap at the spaces between. Jason breathed in. A slow steady pace. Fingers curling around Babs' wrists.

Joker had beaten them. Attempted to break them entirely.

But they'd refused to stand down.

Barbara had taken her lumps and her griefs. She'd redirected her pain and heartache towards taking back the life that the clown had tried to steal from her.

She'd never be Batgirl again.

Jason was sure that she didn't want to be.

Barbara Gordon had outgrown Batgirl's mantle. Her cape and cowl had gone to Cassandra. Given a feral, traumatized, and abused child a name and an identity. Gave her the means to be proud of herself and her abilities. Babs had given her a tie to the only woman who'd ever made an attempt to be in her life as something more than a teacher.

Batgirl belonged to Stephanie Brown now. A girl, Jason could readily admit, that was more like him than any of Bruce's other sidekicks. Jason had never met her. But he'd heard enough about her second-hand through Babs. Stephanie Brown was a kid that Batman would never claim and that Bruce would never take home. Bright and full of spunk. An impish smile and bruised knuckles. Smart-mouthed and just as bright in her own way as Bruce's little birds.

Another kid born and raised on Gotham's bloody, unforgiving streets.

 _Another_ ill-fated Robin _._ The mere-thought made his jaw ache. A flash of anger spread through him. Hot and heavy on his tongue. Jittery in his bones. It faded as quickly as it came. Into a tired sort of bitterness that sat in the pit of his stomach like an iron ball.

Yeah. Jason had heard about Stephanie Brown alright. The poor kid was another of Bruce's _failures_.

Nicolás had a tendency of patrolling separate from him. It was something that Talia had encouraged. A gift of the Pit, she'd said once, that allowed humans and dæmons to wander on separate paths without any strain.

Jason didn't know if that was true. He could still remember....still _feel_ the bone-deep pain as the Joker walked away from him. A tiny form clutched in his hands. The press of something unfathomable inside of his chest. The pull of some ethereal thread at something deeper passed his heart before it snapped and the path towards the door was covered in a thin trail of glimmering Dust.

Jason couldn't say if the Pit had caused the separation between himself and his dæmon. Or if it had only cemented what the Joker had begun.

But he knew that it was only one more nail in the coffin that had been Robin.

 _His_ Robin.

Just as Barbara could never go back to being Batgirl. Jason could never recapture whatever it was that had made him Robin.

The magic had died with Nicolás.

It had died with him in an Ethiopian warehouse.

**Author's Note:**

> God. I have so many ideas for Daemon AU. I got side-tracked by Jason and Babs but originally meant to write something Dick-related. Next time. Hopefully anyway.


End file.
